Chernobyl Disaster: The Experiment That Went Too Far

On April 26, many outlets traditionally write a lot about who and what caused the Chernobyl disaster, some others decide to refresh reader's knowledge of nuclear physics and publish photos and footage of the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant that occurred in 1986. We decided to highlight something else — the moments when the station was sentenced again and again, while the experiment continued. It was called "testing the turbine generator rotor rundown system.” Simply put — whether a turbine spinning by inertia (in case of a power outage at the station) could supply power to the main circulation pumps until the emergency diesel generators started. The three previous attempts since 1983 had failed. The Ministry was waiting for success. Everyone was waiting. The experiment was considered potentially dangerous, but no one believed that the RBMK-1000 could explode.